A new program is being offered for tradespeople who want to break into the business world.

The Atlantic Trades Business Seal is a certification program that will teach people in the trades how to open up their own business or move up in an already existing business.

It's being offered in five colleges across the east coast including the New Brunswick Community College. In order to achieve the business seal, program participants are required to complete 150 hours of study in five different areas.

Training
and Labour Minister Danny Soucy says that this program provides the
link between the skills required for the respective trade, and the
skills it takes to run a business, which he says, are two very different
things.

The Conference Board of Canada saying that nearly one million positions in trades will open up nationwide due to retirements by 2020.

The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of a suspended city police officer who was convicted on charges of assault and making threats after his house was broken into.

Constable Chris Messer was convicted of threatening Brett McAdam behind the Canadian Tire store on the east side and assaulting Randy King while in a police car outside the city lockup. Both testified Messer accused them of breaking into his home which later had bullets fired into it in a drive by shooting.

Both of those convictions have been overturned.

The Court of Appeal still has to decide in the next few months whether Messer will be acquitted on the assault charge or stand trial again. His status as a police officer still has to be determined.

The province's movers and shakers made a case in Calgary for bringing oil and gas to the Port City, but what did that case look like from the other side?

Greg Stringham of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers tells CHSJ News it was crystal-clear to him that mayor Mel Norton believes that this would revive our economy and keep our workforce from migrating to Alberta.

Stringham tells us what he took away from the meeting was that they are clearly focused on not only the opportunities it would bring in terms of jobs in New Brunswick, but the opportunuity for additional businesses and for workers in the province to be able to have those opportunities close to home. He says that was emphasized to them.

Only time will tell whether their pitch will be accepted. Stringham tells us that they'll be able to make a call when TransCanada's open-season ends in mid-June.